Here's what Garth says about the Chris Gaines project.......

"In no way do we want anyone to think this is joke. This is serious music, this is a serious artist; he just doesnt exist."

"Strange stuff. But you have to hear the music to understand."

"I don't think you can tour with this guy, 'cause you know it's gonna turn ugly the first time some guy says, 'Hey, a..hole, play Friends In Low Places.' "

"We want people to go into the theater and know Chris Gaines and care about Chris Gaines."

"This guy is going to be the sacrificial lamb of music, as the character is murdered in the movie. He is going to do it for the pure reasons, he's going to do it for the right reasons, and it's ultimately going to cost him his life. But, like the Braveheart character, he's going to die for something he believes in and is something that makes him 1,000 times bigger than he ever could have been if he was still alive"

"Hopefully, the people who follow my music won't think, "Man, this guy's going off the deep end." Instead they'll understand that I'm still the same person I always was; it's just that I'm now developing a new character that will be inventing his own music as well."

"Even though I'm playing a different person, I'm hoping that if you're a fan of Garth, you'll see Garth in the character. He's there. I hope that happens with the music, too- that even though it might not be the sound you're used to hearing, something in it grooves you and takes you back to the roots of Garth music of the past."

"In no way is this Garth Brooks going pop."

"Country music is what I do. This is just something I was hired to do by the folks at Paramount. I wouldn't be doing this [otherwise]."

"Truthfully, though, this is acting. This is hard. The other stuff, the Garth stuff, it just happens, it's fun. This is work."

"In the 90's Chris Gaines' music not only changed with the times, but also changed the times."

"There's no story here about an alter ego. There's no story here about Garth wanting to break out of country. There's no story here about Garth getting so fed up he's got to stretch out . . . If I hadn't been approached by Paramount, I would have made this album and played it in my house. I'd never have put it out, because it's not what I am."

"As far as actually dressing up as Chris, I just don't think it's a good idea. The only obvious place would be on "Saturday Night Live.' Garth could host, and Chris would be the musical guest."

"I think you just play the music; that's all you can do. If the movie works, and people seem to have a hunger for Chris Gaines' style of music, then maybe we'll go on."

"I know I could make records for the next 10 years and they would be hits, but that's not challenging."

"Whenever you play music you're never acting. The Chris guy is an act but the music is just straight from the heart."

"But I play this CD at home, and I usually don't do that with my stuff. Usually when it's through, I'm ready to take a break. But this thing, I just play it all the time."

"I listened to Tommy Sims over and over again, listened to his phrasing, listened to his licks and tried to figure out how to sound like him.  If I could pick how Chris should sound, it would be like Tommy."

"This one and The Lamb, I've promised Paramount.  Anything after that, if it's Chris Gaines, it's because I want to. If the demand's inside me, whether the demand's out there or not, I can make another one that I can sit at my house and play. "

"The plotline of the movie is about a fan who won't give up that [Chris'] death was an accident. His music has driven her; she's lived off his music, and now he's going to need her to take the reins, take charge of her life and actually save his name and reputation after he's gone."

"For those who can’t go along for the ride, that’s cool. Thanks for the wonderful decade we’ve had. For those who can came along for the ride, let’s go!"

"There's not going to be other characters that evolve out of Garth.  If it is, it may be a children's character for children's books, like a little Garth.  But not a mini-me or anything"

"It's Garth.  It's just me.  It's nothing to be scared of...This isn't something to fear, it's something to have fun with"

"There will be NO Chris Gaines tour, simply to avoid the situation where somebody screams out: 'hey ****! play Friends in Low Places'. BUT there might be a place in a Garth Brooks concert for a Chris Gaines segment"

"The song that defines Chris Gaines the best, oddly enough is the same song on the Chris Gaines Project that defines Garth Brooks the best. The song is called, "Right Now" and it marries the current events of the millennium with the give love a chance theme of the sixties"

"I'm always nervous about any release we have, especially the farther you get in your career. The question is, will Chris Gaines be treated like a new artist and be allowed the chance to snowball or will it be treated like a Garth Brooks album and if it doesn't have a traditional Garth Brooks first week, which we've been fortunate enough to have in the past will it be deemed a failure? Game day is Sept. 28th"

"I have found that no matter how long you act a certain way, the second that something comes up that is different, doubt enters the mind and wonders if you'll ever be the same again. Only time proves sincerity, Chris is a character and a ride. Have fun and enjoy it, I hope you like the music"

"For quite some time now I have wished for hair like Chris' but the whole time that it's on, when I'm in character I'm wishing the dude would get a haircut"

"You have to psych yourself to be somebody else as much as you can, but the truth is, when you sing--if you're going to sing where people go, 'Ah! He's not reading something off a page, he's really singing'--you've got to come from your soul,"

"When I first heard this, I couldn't hear any Garth, and now it's him. So there are some things you can't hide."

"I'm always going to be me and country music's what I do...I did my very best"

"But the greatest thing, thank God, for me, is the music, because that's what it's all about."

"Chris is not my alter ego. He is a character in an upcoming film. He is a fictitious pop rock legend who changed the music for the '90s."

"You just kept sticking names with the face until you found one that seemed to work. The first name that worked was Chris Garrett, but there is a famous composer by the name Chris Garrett, so the next choice was Gaines. And it seemed to roll off the tongue so easily that that became his name."

"It seems that when you crash it always seems to be harder than how high you fly when you succeed."

"He [Chris Gaines] would be hard to get to know, because I think he has this fear within himself that if he gets close to you, something bad will happen to you. Everyone in his past that he has worshipped, with the exception of his mother, has come upon untimely passing. So, he's pretty much within himself, but he's a very tender and loving character, and at the same time does not bend on his belief about his music or about how his people who allow his music to live are treated."

"Chris is a character. Garth is simply who I am."

"After living with the project fully finished for 2 months now, I see Garth so much in the pictures, and hear Garth so much in the music that I realize that even if you're playing a character so much opposite, you ARE the character. And my Mom always told me that your voice is the window to your soul, and no matter how good you are at acting you cannot hide who you are, or more importantly, what you are not."

"We went through several looks on what Chris should look like, and the first time that I actually looked in the mirror and felt satisfied with how the character looked was after we had already shot two videos, "Lost In You" and "It Don't Matter to the Sun." I believe we have got the character pretty close to being the right look now in the video "Right Now." The makeup is very different, but you still feel like Garth - you just feel like Garth in drag. But when they put the hair on you turn into Chris and you get very withdrawn. You get very sensitive and you get very dark. And it's really weird how easy it is to slip into character that way."

"You never do anything but follow the opportunities that open before you. Opportunities that the music should be taking you to. So therefore, there really cannot be any risk in what you do. The only time risk comes into play is when you make your decisions based on something other than the music. Does that keep me from being any less scared of failure? No, it doesn't. It's just something that comforts me in times when things aren't going exactly the way I would like them to. I am very proud to say, no matter what the result of the Chris Gaines project is, the music came first. So therefore, it is what I should be doing."

"I've always found my life to go extremely easy when I turn things over to God. The times that have been the hardest for me in my life I find are the times when I think I know me a little better than He does."

"People always tend to label me as someone who gives, when I've always felt like someone who takes, or receives. If you could walk in my shoes on that stage, you would understand that I spend the entire time receiving from you all. And like all things good in life, the credit goes to God, or those I truly believe God is using to deliver such gifts."

"As an artist, maybe a fan can get too obsessive, but don't forget I'm a fan of other artists, and I am very obsessive of "my" artists as a fan."

"I think one of the coolest traits that seems to be consistent in our career is that no one can explain the reason for whatever amount of success that we've been fortunate enough to have. And to me it seems simple. I don't know why, but it's not hard to see that the people have always supported me when I tried to fly. And, truthfully, I don't know if I'm flying or not - or I'm being carried - but either way, I'm getting to my goals, and I think I have God, my family, and the people to thank for that."

"The fact that I have made an album which I might be the proudest of all the albums I've ever made and it never getting heard because people are scared to death to go pick it up. I'm really, really pumped about how this album sounds. How much time was taken. You don't want it to be over but at the same time, you want the music to be heard. It would really break my heart, of all albums that I've had other than probably NO FENCES to think that if this music isn't heard because of who it is and not what it is, that would kill me."

"It would crush my heart to be on the end of a project where so much work and so much heart and soul was put in, and where the music is so good…to not find success. So we'll see what I'm supposed to learn from this."

"Can you take a broken heart and dress it up in a wig and a goatee and call it Chris Gaines?  NO!" ......."Oh Mango, c'mon man, don't you see it? The whole movie, the whole album, everything...it was thought up so I could get back here to you" - Garth explaining the Chris Gaines concept to Mango on Saturday Night Live 11-13-99

SNL jpgs & wavs 11-13-99

"All I know is that when you put music and marketing together all of a sudden people think less of the music and more about the marketing. The truth is we took care of the music so hopefully it will stand the time of the questions, and the time of the press who try and dig more out of this than there is there. And hopefully the music will outlive that."

"I feel good about myself as an artist. I feel good about myself as a son. I feel good about myself as a partner to a woman that's invested her life in me.  I think I'm gonna be okay...." - Garth speaking as Chris Gaines on Behind The Life of Chris Gaines 11-24-99

"People that think that's a fiasco are short-minded, unintelligent in music who (don't) know anything about taking risks." - after the American Music Awards 1-18-00

"HE'S A CHARACTER IN A MOVIE!!!" - Austin City Limits 2-6-00